With an aim to transform UK’s market for wireless broadband, BT and FON have come together to launch BT FON, the world’s largest WiFi community. New members will be part of an existing community of 500,000

Members. They will have access to more than 190,000 FON hotspots worldwide as well. Anyone joining in will be able to use those FON hotspots across the world and all the new BT FON hotspots free of charge.

 

BT FON has plans to build a huge community WiFi (News - Alert) network, covering hundreds of thousands of hotspots, in a short space of time. The secure open WiFi solution has been developed at FON and BT’s research labs. BT has invested in FON as part of the tie-in, joining the company’s other investors, which include Google (News - Alert).

 

The BT FON collaboration is expected to accelerate and complement the work BT has already done with BT Openzone, with the aim of providing WiFi coverage across the UK, and eventually, the rest of the world.

 

“We are giving our millions of Total Broadband customers a choice and an opportunity. If they are prepared to securely share a little of their broadband, they can share the broadband at hundreds of thousands of FON and BT Openzone hotspots today, without paying a penny,” said Gavin Patterson, BT Group (News - Alert) managing director, Consumer. “We have built a public WiFi network and 12 Wireless Cities already, but today we are saying to customers, let’s build a WiFi community together, which covers everywhere and serves everyone.”

 

Martin Varsavsky, FON’s Founder and CEO, is also quite excited about the strategic partnership. “BT is a fantastic addition to our roster of investors and highlights the ongoing success of FON, the enormous support from ISPs and Telcos around the world and the strength of our vision to establish shared WiFi access worldwide,” said Varsavsky. “From the beginning FON users believed in the concept of sharing and in the peoples’ ability to participate in building something important that would benefit everyone. With BT FON, those beliefs have proved to be well-founded.”